Thursday, June 5, 2014

AN 300 in Morocco

If you ever have the chance to travel, take it.Let me rephrase that – if you ever have the
chance to travel with an anthropology course, take it. It’s one thing to
travel and see the world, and don’t get me wrong it is an amazing
experience.But when you go abroad
specifically for anthropology your eyes and mind open up a little bit more, at
least in my experience.

Prior to
traveling to Morocco with Professor Haldane and my two other classmates, Lucy
and Emily, I traveled to England, Ireland and Bali.Those trips were amazing in their own way and
I will forever be grateful for the memories I have from them. Going to Morocco
with anthropology though made me want to understand their culture more and
more.I’ve always been interested in
other people’s cultures and other people’s reasons for specific things, but on
this trip I found myself engaging more in my curiosity.I wanted to know why. Why was it that women
drew henna on their hands?Why was it
that men were always the ones sitting around the cafés in the middle of the day
drinking tea? I started paying more attention to my surroundings, specifically
the people.I mean yeah it’s great to
see the town or city you are in but the town or city wouldn’t be anything
without the people.I started noticing
how affectionate men were with other men, and it was in a close friendship kind
of way.I noticed women would come out
more at night with their children.And
even that girls in some cities would ride bicycles but in other cities girls
didn’t ride bicycles. Of course, I questioned that because of my
curiosity.

I’ve never
been very good at “people watching” as people would call it because most of the
time I feel like I was impolitely staring.I was nervous at first for this trip because I felt like I had to pay
attention to the people, my surroundings and the behaviors for the sake of the
paper I had to write when I returned home.I quickly let go of that feeling and just ‘was’ throughout the trip; I
let the anthropology I learned prior to the trip soak in.Believe me when I say, I learned a whole lot
by just observing and being curious.

Being on
this trip opened my eyes to the other worlds that surround us.From now on, when I travel outside of the
country I will now be able to really experience the culture for what it truly
is, just because I stay curious and ask different questions.